Performer and choreographer who fused ballet with South African contemporary dance styles More than a profession, dance was a calling and an innate need for the South African performer and choreographer Dada Masilo. “I’m very miserable when I’m not moving,” she said in a 2013 documentary. “I have no stress when I’m dancing. If anyone wants to make me happy, just put me in the studio, put me on stage.” Masilo, who has died unexpectedly after a short illness aged 39, brought happiness as well as provocation to audiences worldwide as she toured her singular works fusing ballet and contemporary da ..read more

Outrageous drag queens, beloved Strictly dancers and a Gareth Southgate impersonator – all were shot by our fantastic photographers this year ..read more

Guardian Australia critics pick out the best live stage experiences of the year Ilbijerri Theatre Company Sydney; Melbourne; Brisbane; Darwin; heading to Perth festival, 27 February – 1 March ..read more

Wayne McGregor’s MaddAddam, the RSC’s School for Scandal and Robin/Red/Breast with Maxine Peake are among the highlights of the photographer’s work for the Guardian this year ..read more

A life-changing crash revisited, a rapturous duet for Matthew Ball and Alina Cojocaru and an everyday story of medieval fantasy Read the Observer critics’ review of 2024 in full 1. Assembly Hall Sadler’s Wells, London/Festival theatre, Edinburgh; March/August It’s rare for a dance piece to make you laugh; even rarer to find one set in a medieval re-enactment society meeting in a rundown community hall. But the glory of Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young’s new 2024 work, made for her company, Kidd Pivot, was its uniquely oddball worldview, which took the dynamics of a squabbling group and transf ..read more

Coliseum; Linbury theatre; Royal Opera House, London ENB’s new Nutcracker recaptures the joy, while Royal Ballet finesse shines through the bling in a Frederick Ashton classic. Plus, a searing festive antidote from Ben Duke Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet The Nutcracker has been part of Christmas in Britain since 1934, when Alicia Markova starred in a production staged by Nicholas Sergeyev. “She was brittle and sparkling, like the frosted icing on a Christmas cake,” said the critic PW Manchester, ecstatically. In 1950, Markova performed in a shortened version for London Festival Ballet, the company ..read more

The Royal Ballet principal dancer on a mesmerising Wimbledon final, the fragrance that gets him into character, and a 91-year-old dancing legend Reece Clarke was born in North Lanarkshire in 1995 to a steelworker father and a mother who worked as a childminder. Growing up in Airdrie, he began ballet classes aged three and later joined his three older brothers at the Royal Ballet School. He won young British dancer of the year in 2012 and has since performed – often as a prince – in Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. In 2022 the Royal Ballet promoted Clarke to principal dancer. On 28 and 31 Decembe ..read more

Sadler’s Wells, London Back for a 30th anniversary tour, the star choreographer’s signature wit and tenderness shine in this perennially haunting fantasy ‘Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake.” Think about how that sounds. Only a handful of film directors have been distinctive and famous enough to become “the name above the title”, and here is Bourne, surely the only choreographer-director whose name naturally precedes the title not only of most of his works, but of the world’s best-known ballet. Premiered in 1995, this Swan Lake is now back for a 30th anniversary tour. Bourne’s signature style is much ..read more

Royal Festival Hall, LondonBorrowing from Swan Lake and the Ugly Duckling, Circa deliver wow moments and ornate arrangements as the dancers move in finely tuned equilibrium Australian company Circa are masters of modern circus, often eschewing obvious exhibitionism, and instead weaving acrobatic skills with a dance and theatre sensibility to make mood pieces. Previous works have considered the plight of refugees (The Return), tragic tales of Orpheus and Eurydice or Dido and Aeneas, and have taken on music from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to Beethoven’s Ninth – all serious business. Duck Pond i ..read more

London Coliseum Artistic director Aaron S Watkin oversees a faintly surreal Edwardian setting of dancing chimney sweeps, suffragettes and Liquorice Allsorts in a sweet but not sickly production English National Ballet’s brand new production of the Nutcracker vastly improves on its previous version. It doesn’t come with a gimmick or drastic reinterpretation, only the sense that artistic director Aaron S Watkin has really thought things through – and hired a cracking designer, Dick Bird, to make the stage zing. The setting is Edwardian London, a view of St Paul’s, chimney sweeps and suffragette ..read more